BLM-Arizona Monitoring Climate and Fire Resiliency in Forests of Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument | L17AS00063

Opportunity Information: Apply for L17AS00063

The BLM-Arizona grant opportunity titled "Monitoring Climate and Fire Resiliency in Forests of Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument" is a competitive, discretionary cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM). It is focused on natural resources work (CFDA 15.233) and is designed to support a partner in continuing and expanding long-term monitoring and analysis of forest restoration outcomes in ponderosa pine ecosystems on the Arizona Strip. The opportunity builds directly on a long-running collaboration that began in 1995 between BLM's Arizona Strip District and the Ecological Restoration Institute (ERI) at Northern Arizona University, created in response to concerns that dense forest conditions and accumulated fuels could drive large, severe wildfires and degrade key ecosystem services.

The project context is an established network of long-term monitoring plots that ERI set up to evaluate how forests respond to restoration treatments across roughly 4,000 acres. Those treatments notably included mechanical thinning and prescribed fire, with baseline measurements taken before treatment implementation. The monitoring program tracked indicator variables tied to forest structure, vegetation composition, and hazardous fuel conditions, and then re-measured plots over time to document changes after treatment. The grant is essentially intended to carry that kind of monitoring and learning forward so BLM can make better, evidence-based decisions over the long term, adjust management as conditions change, and demonstrate progress toward sustainable ecosystem outcomes that align with public expectations.

BLM's core objective is to establish or continue a partnership that can produce actionable information for long-term planning and adaptive management. The agency is seeking work that evaluates whether landscape-scale restoration treatments are actually delivering durable improvements in resilience and ecological integrity. That includes assessing changes in forest structure and the condition of old-growth trees, tracking hazardous fuels and the potential for extreme fire behavior, and documenting effects on wildlife habitat and understory vegetation. Another priority is determining how well treatments are restoring the "characteristic" landscape structure, meaning forest patterns and conditions that are consistent with the ecological setting and historical or desired conditions for these ponderosa pine systems. The opportunity also emphasizes understanding how restoration interacts with climate change to influence future fire behavior and overall ecosystem integrity, recognizing that warming temperatures, drought stress, and shifting fire regimes can change how forests respond over time. Finally, BLM is looking for improved methods and techniques that expand monitoring capacity at the landscape scale, which can include approaches that make monitoring more efficient, broader in coverage, or better integrated across plots, remote sensing, modeling, and field data.

Administratively, the funding instrument is a cooperative agreement, which typically implies substantial involvement by BLM during project execution, such as collaboration on study design, data needs, deliverables, and integration of findings into management. The opportunity listed an award ceiling of $230,000, with one expected award. Eligibility was listed as unrestricted, meaning it was open to a broad range of applicants (with any limits potentially noted in additional eligibility text). The original posting date was April 21, 2017, with an original application closing date of May 22, 2017. In practical terms, the award is meant to support a single partner team capable of long-term ecological monitoring, analysis, and applied recommendations that directly inform how BLM manages restoration, fire risk, and climate resiliency within the Grand Canyon-Parashant landscape.

• The Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "BLM-Arizona Monitoring Climate and Fire Resiliency in Forests of Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.233.
• This funding opportunity was created on Apr 21, 2017.
• Applicants must submit their applications by May 22, 2017. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $230,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for L17AS00063

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